Thanks for your excellent feedback; very much appreciated. Here is what I fear: that I will end my marriage and then find that gay relationships are fleeting and that I am not at an age where I would be attractive to a potential partner. I have this overwhelming sense that I will get sick and die in isolation, that I will regret everything that I gave up and wish that I could recapture the life that I have now. I do understand on an intellectual level that this doesn't have to happen but I don't think that I have the emotional strength to make the kind of changes that I would like to have happen. So the bottom line: is it better to have a B minus life and at least know that it will probably not get worse than B minus or strive for an A but fear that everything could end in an F......I have such envy for young men who can seemingly be who they are now without the huge shame, guilt and self-hatred that would have happened to me if I made this decision at a young age. So I remain suspended in mid-air and I wonder if all of this was due at least partially due to the CSA that I experienced between ages 8 and 11 or if I would feel this way had that not occurred or if that really matters. I have been immobilized, confused and sick of all of this for several years. I do consider just giving up but then I continue on, existing, doing well on the surface, regretting that time passes. Always regretting.Ed

I don't think the reasons really matter. If you can best imagine growing old, and sharing your future with a man and, it's men you find attractive and arousing, the does the why matter?

What matter is that you accept your sexuality and are happy and satisfied living that sexuality.

As for dating, finding Mr. right, sure it's a smaller pool that for straight guys, but that doesn't mean he isn't out there, and we are really good at finding other gay men, and good at making friends with them.

I appreciate what you are saying Blue. But the reality is that I can never accept my sexuality and be happy and satisfied with that. I wish that I could but it seems unimaginable. I think it is too late for me. I can't tell you how sad it is to write that but that's just the way it is. The idea of being "happy and satisfied" is something that I've never had and am convinced will never happen. Is that due to CSA? Probably not. I may be trying to convince myself that it is because that can provide me with some kind of explanation. I feel that I made my choice so many years ago -- at a time when it seemed to me that anyone who was gay was mentally ill -- and now I have to live with it. I have lived a facade and will probably keep living that way. I truly do fear rejection, loneliness and just a different kind of self-hatred. But self-hatred, despite the fact that I've been seeing a good therapist and have all the insight in the world, is my single most dominant emotion........Ed

Edward, so many have done that, some I know of not coming out until they were in their 50's or 60's. I understand why some choose to remain in the closet, to live the lie as you are doing. Family, friends, fiances, all of plays into those decisions.

No one can force you out, no one can convince you that gay is okay. You would have to do that yourself. It's never too late to learn self acceptance but, you have to want to learn it before anyone can begin to guide you toward that.

I hear you Ed, I was 38 on my the date that I knew what I needed to be happy. I would just say that who I'm attracted to had very little to do with my coming out.

I fell in love with the most beautiful person I have ever met, I knew instantly that I had just met my soul mate. If this has happened for you Ed, then I would not change a thing, regardless of sexual attraction, if it hasn't then I would never, ever give up.

I am transsexual and I was assaulted when I was still presenting as a girl. The memory was completely repressed until very recently. There are some symptoms that apply to both transsexual people and sexual assault survivors, like hating your genitals. But after just one day here, I realized something.

I had spoken to many female survivors of sexual assault. I felt sympathy for them, but I did not feel as if I had been in their shoes despite the fact that I had a similar experience to them. After I remembered the assault, I talked to a woman who survived sexual assault when she was a child. Even after knowing that we had similar experiences, it still did not feel like we went through the same thing.

And then I came here. And I instantly felt connected to the people here - and it was because they were men like me.

There may have been some anatomical differences in how I was assaulted vs most of the men here, but what I realized is that male survivors react to our assaults differently from women, and that we recover differently.

I guess this was a tangent, starting off with my take on how assault doesn't change your internal identity, and ended up with me babbling about how my I relate my unchanged gender identity to my assault.

PS: I am bisexual and I don't think it has anything to do with my assault. The notion that my sexual orientation and my assault are related just seems ludicrous to me.

This topic kills me. It is by far the thing on which I cry the most in T sessions. I've discussed it on the boards before too.

I dissociated my CSA and never saw it as a consequential part of my life until it took control of what was left of my life about 7 weeks ago. Growing up I was always attracted to both sexes more or less equally. I was ashamed and disgusted by this and tried to suppress the male-oriented thoughts as best I could. After a decade of misery and personal growth I accepted myself as bi and everything became so much better, clearer, free-er. Then I came here and for the first time ever learned of "CSA --> SSA" and it just felt like all that work was for nothing and maybe I had been / still was straight but with a CSA "asterisk".

Some people on page 4 of this thread spoke right into my soul: it's not the attraction itself that is bad, once youve accepted it - rather it's the idea that it might not have been your real self. "It makes me feel less free as a human being," one of them said. Yes, yes, yes.

A few other thoughts:

The very concept and terms for "heterosexual" and "homosexual" are only about 120 years old and are not universal across all cultures. Pre-20th century Western culture homosexuality was considered something men DID, not what they WERE, and it was understood that men could want or do these things while not defining themselves that way and still living societally acceptable mainstream lives by the standards of the time. And in parts of Asia, Pacific island cultures, the Middle East, and cultures of antiquity like Greece and Rome - there were quite different understandings of how normal, acceptable, and in some cases even mandatory and enforced (Pacific islands and central Asia) same-sex encounters were. I tend to think that with a cultural "blank slate" most men would get horny / lonely / curious / affectionate / grateful enough to occasionally indulge in same sex encounters while primarily seeking out women - but then that's what I WOULD say, now isn't it?

Looking in the animal kingdom only backs up that view - one species after another where same-sex couplings take place in the context of still pursuing opposite sex mates. The lifestyles of our close relative the bonobo is near legendary, I assume I don't need to elaborate.

This is in no way meant to delegitimize the feelings or orientations of those who identify as primarily or entirely gay. I hope it didn't come across that way and if it did I apologize. There are plenty of things unique about humanity and there's no reason that can't be one of them.

Brains are complicated things, not intelligently designed but adapted for whatever worked best at the time. And human consciousness, awareness, identity, choice, fantasies, are just a flimsy tissue overlaying a consuming reproductive drive that is over 600 million years older than that. The two don't always see eye to eye and the big head does NOT always control the little head. Plenty of guys here had their bodies betray them and could likely attest to the falsehood of that particular fortune cookie slogan. If the big head controlled the little head we'd be extinct. Every cave or village where the women were ugly - there'd be no one left. The Black Death killed a third of Europe, people buried their entire families, entire generations, entire villages... and a year or two later the surviving women would all be pregnant, and it wasn't because everybody felt safe or healed or "over it." There are some things you can't think around because no one will really understand them.

CSA takes that absurdly complicated instinct-to-individual relationship and makes it even more awkward and weird.

hi, first of all i would think yes the 'abuse' does plays some part in it. not that its a proven fact. but somehow, admittedly i did enjoy the abuse itself and the fact that the abuser was a him and iam a gay( been out now to my friends and some of my families for 2 years now) and i had thought about it recently of how it happened and why would it happened in the first place.

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